11 ms·

What Does It Take to Climb Up the Ladder?

79 points by dpflan 10y ago

rayiner 10y ago
> For college graduates, they argue, “marriage has become the commitment device that supports intensive joint investments in children,” a cooperative “joint project of raising economically successful children.” This is a great article but this point kind of made me chuckle. "Has become?" It's always been that.
- dpflan 10y ago
  I too found these statements entertaining - it makes the process of raising a child seem utilitarian for the family and society (which is a valid / interesting perspective).
- qntty 10y ago
  Not too long ago people had children because they needed people to help work the farm.
- roflc0ptic 10y ago
  It's really not a bad point. As one of those college graduates, having children is probably the only reason I'd get married. Marriage has been and is many other things, too. It's has been a tool women have used to escape their parent's house. It's been used to build social ties among disparate groups, as well as maintain social ties within tight knit communities. It's been a union of two humans in the eyes of God. It's been a tool for subjugating women, and social control. College graduates are getting married less, and later. The point of that sentence, I think, is that the values driving the decision to get married have shifted, and are somewhat stratified by socioeconomic status.
  - feld 10y ago
    In the eyes of theists it is the union of two humans in the eyes of God. I think in 2017 it's time we start calling this fairy-tale bullshit out instead of stating it as fact.
    - ezequiel-garzon 10y ago
      I don't think being a theist means you believe in religious ceremonies necessarily. Also, the comment you replied to made pretty clear that marriage is many things to different people. In any event, in 2017 and 5000 you'll be able to spend your life arguing what a fact is. I'm an atheist, but I'm totally OK with that comment. People should relax across the theological board...
      - roflc0ptic 10y ago
        Yeah! The comment is taking an anthropological perspective - marriage is a complex institution with huge differences between cultures, and a simplistic description "evolutionarily/economically beneficial strategy for pooling of resources for child rearing" lacks a lot of explanatory power. What about gay people? etc
    - bobbington 10y ago
      is this comment appropriate for hacker news? Seems too debatable to me. Whether God exists or not is a contentious subject. but still 89% of Americans think God exists according to a Gallup poll. Many highly intelligent people believe in God and his view on marriage. It is not intellectually honest to say that Gods existence, and thus religious views on marriage is a foregone conclusion when 1) so many highly intelligent people disagree and 2) its impossible to completely disprove the existence of God (Richard Dawkins acknowledges this) http://www.gallup.com/poll/193271/americans-believe-god.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/193271/americans-believe-god.aspx
    - metaphorm 10y ago
      this is a level of vitriol and hostility that gets people like Trump elected. I don't believe in the Judaeo-Christian God either, but I don't feel compelled to make nasty remarks about it in public. Other people have different beliefs than you. Judge them on their behavior, not their beliefs.
      - wfo 10y ago
        You can tell someone they are being a jerk without blaming Trump on them. Now it seems like the auto response to someone saying something distasteful and liberal is to say "you, saying stuff like this that I don't like, that's why Trump got elected" and intended or not it's an implicit threat -- don't say things I don't like or else we'll get another Trump. People being rude on the Internet is NOT why Trump won the election and believing so, and letting people hold you and what you say hostage with the threat "I might vote for Trump again if you e.g. defend feminism too rigorously and loudly, watch it liberal" isn't sustainable or acceptable. But you're right the comment you're referring to was very rude and unacceptable, my response is intended towards this sort of response /in general/.
- nfriedly 10y ago
  I got married while in college, and generally recommend it. For one thing, it made sense financially because the gov't stopped counting my parent's money (that I couldn't touch) when determining how much aid I received. It was also nice just to have someone to help me out with things (eating decently, remembering to print homework, etc.) And, of course, the usual benefits of being married...
  - ashark 10y ago
    > For one thing, it made sense financially because the gov't stopped counting my parent's money (that I couldn't touch) when determining how much aid I received. Can confirm. If my (now) wife and I'd gotten married freshman year instead of waiting until junior year we'd have saved a hell of a lot of money. > It was also nice just to have someone to help me out with things (eating decently, remembering to print homework, etc.) Works both ways. One person's ice-cream craving easily becomes both people eating ice cream, to pick an example. Or "I'm in a hurry and hitting Arby's, do you want me to bring you something?". Well, I didn't, but now I guess I do. Much easier to eat healthy solo unless you marry someone with significantly healthier eating habits than yours, IMO. Even if they're just similar to yours there's a good chance you'll end up eating more junk for the above reason. And such habits can drift over the years.
    - ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
      Maybe HN readers are preternaturally mature for their ages, but marrying young for material benefits has a pretty bad track record in the military, where young soldiers do it in order to live off post.
      - ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
        Well, marrying young for material benefits and being in love. I have no problem with gaming the system for benefits, because marriage is unfortunately tied to so many benefits.
  - FussyZeus 10y ago
- watwut 10y ago
  Parenting is now much more involved then it used to be. You can not tell your seven years old to go play alone outside. You don't just have four-five years old playing whole day, they have to have enriching activities up to teaching them letters etc. In the past, you would marry for many different reasons that had nothing to do with children - including simply social pressure or wish to be more independent from parents.
  - 6stringmerc 10y ago
    Also, I know in a lot of rural communities to this day, children are part of the family labor force at a young age. They're not idle input experiments, if it can be helped. They're out in the field or in the barn too.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    Parenting is no more involved than it used to be. Among certain demographics, the social expectations surrounding parenting are more involved than they used to be. But those are optional. Neither my wife or I did any enriching activities as kids. We ran around outside and played with sticks, or sat around and read. Teach your kids to read as quickly as you can, because then they can entertain themselves and leave you alone.
    - ErrantX 10y ago
      > Teach your kids to read as quickly as you can, because then they can entertain themselves and leave you alone. Not just this, but educate themselves too. Best Child-Hack you can do is teach them to love reading.
- mkaziz 10y ago
  Having sex was also a major reason. Socially acceptable pre and extra marital sex is still a newish thing in our societies.
  - chrisbennet 10y ago
    Maybe 60 years ago. It was pretty common starting in the 1960s in the US.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
kazagistar 10y ago
I didn't see error bars or distribution within each category on those graphs. Are these results significant enough to indicate these traits have more then a few % points impact on upward mobility chance?
known 10y ago
Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), Narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), Psychopathy (lack of remorse and empathy), Sadism (pleasure in suffering of others) in REAL World
exergy 10y ago
I'm going to go off on a tangent here, and will happily accept downvotes, but I feel like venting for a bit. I love the NYT. Years ago, when I got into it, I was blown away by Krugman, Kristof, Friedman (yes), and even David Brooks. They sounded sensible, nuanced, and intelligent. A lof of that hasn't changed (except perhaps my opinion of Friedman!), but NYT's comment section is a cesspool. I'm as liberal as they come, but every NYT comment section is effectively blaming the right-wing regardless of the context of the article. When Brooks talks about values for example, or "social fabric", I think he does a good job of being reasonable, and if the article were from "anon" vs. Brooks, people would say "Yeah, sounds about right." Instead, all we get are "David, your party caused this, blah blah blah". Even in this article, there is a lot of data and lots of food for thought. And yet, the top comment starts out: "Is the problem "single mothers" or is it the right-wingers who conspire to create, perpetuate, and steadily increase economic inequality?" It's as if you only care about establishing what side the author belongs too, argument be damned.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  This is the web today. I stopped reading comments on most articles long ago because it's always like you described. This does nobody any good. Actually, it does politicians good to keep us separated down the middle. We are at our weakest in this position.
  - digi_owl 10y ago
    Not helping that modern marketing has taken to game such comment sections (never mind the wider social media field) on behalf of their paymasters. In a sense the net, first seen as flattening the classes, have instead empowered the elite to make both Stasi and Bernays look like bungling idiots. Rather than crude manual policing etc, computers can both monitor all activity online (and offline, thanks to the likes of smartphones) and insert data to affect opinions and future activity.
  - c3o 10y ago
velebak 10y ago
Two feet and the desire to climb it.
- 1maginary 10y ago
  >the desire to climb it Isn't the article implying that even the very desire and will to climb it are significantly influenced by upbringing, income, etc? So even if two feet and the desire were all you really needed, you'd still be at a disadvantage compared to people in different income brackets and more stable family status.
onewhonknocks 10y ago
Taking one's hands out of one's pockets.
erikb 10y ago
Well the stats aren't talking at all about success but about persistance and self control
Boothroid 10y ago
A question I'm interested in that is related to this topic: what are the limits to improving conditions through education? For example, if we improve chances for everyone we might end up with thousands more aspiring brain surgeons that will never have the opportunity to pursue their dream, simply because there's a limit to the amount of brain surgeries we will ever need to perform. Isn't improving chances for all going to create misery for those that have their prospects raised, but whose ambition exceeds their talent? I'm reminded of an essay titled The Rise of the Meritocracy in which if I recall correctly a perfect meritocracy is depicted, and one of the problems is that the unsuccessful genuinely have no one to blame but themselves for their status and are even more miserable as a result!
- pm90 10y ago
  It is an interesting question. Although, you do have to differentiate between learning skills and an actual education, which I take to be an improvement in critical thinking and general overall awareness. I still think there would be interesting problems to solve, even in a perfectly educated society. I don't want to be a brain surgeon, or any surgeon, or anything really in the medical field. There is a theory that some people are "naturally inclined" to certain tasks and maybe we could realize that and have a society that allows everyone to specialize in that...
  - jeffdavis 10y ago
    The problem is that natural inclination doesn't always line up with demand. Many people may want to be a professional beer taster, but we don't need very many of them.
- replicatorblog 10y ago
  That's what we call a high-quality problem. The more pressing challenge is how do you get low performers to the point where they could capably manage an airport Chili's. The reality is that it's difficult for people in many blue collar industries to find workers who will show up to work, take direction, etc. The book Hillbilly Elegy documents this phenomena in the Rust Belt. Not sure how big a part of the problem this is, but I've heard this story dozens of times from family who own contracting businesses, low-skill manufacturing ops, etc.
samfisher83 10y ago
To summarize if you have a family with a mother and father who make a of money you will likely make a lot of money.
- gadders 10y ago
  Well, yes, but that doesn't answer why. I would suggest that some portion of intelligence has a hereditary factor, and (outside entertainment and professional sports) intelligence has a correlation with income levels.
  - thatfrenchguy 10y ago
    Cultural capital is a thing as well, one of the big reasons rich people's kids get more successful is because they know people / they know how to behave with other rich people.
    - gadders 10y ago
      That is a thing, certainly. If you chose two kids with identical IQs/personalities, the child with wealthier parents would have an easier time.
- jeffdavis 10y ago
  Maybe it has more to do with having good parents in a stable relationship than the money.
neves 10y ago
Is it just me that chill? when I read things like: > the expected returns to child investments by parents with > limited resources and uncertain futures may be lower than > for more educated parents with greater and more secure > investment capabilities. Sure we live in a capitalist society, but treating my sons like an "investment opportunity" looks crazy.
- metaphorm 10y ago
  it's not just you. we live in a very sick society and the way language is used (by "the paper of record" in this case) is a reflection of that sickness.
- dba7dba 10y ago
  And people with such ideas are opinion makers. Now THAT is chilling.
- throwawayyyyyyy 10y ago
  The fact that you have an emotional attachment to your children is evidence of their value. Things that provide value are assets, and things that provide value over time are investments. A common share of Google may give you financial value in return, whereas a child will give you emotional or psychological return. Technically, children should be classified as more of an investment than stock because they can go work and provide for you financially while still giving you emotional value. Stock can't really give you emotional value (other than pride).
  - Sone7 10y ago
    >Things that provide value are assets Things.
    - throwawayyyyyyy 10y ago
      Humans are things. What's your point?
  - neves 10y ago
phantarch 10y ago
Is this measuring a causal relationship though? Correlation is not causation... Maybe those kids from more wealthy/well-educated families are more persistent and tempered because their self-image aligns with society's looming popular image of what people /should/ be: wealthy, polymath millionaires.
- jeffdavis 10y ago
  This article is not a standard "character drives prosperity" piece. Did you read it? If so, I am missong your point.
jeffdavis 10y ago
"the failure of government efforts to affect or slow down negative developments has left an opening for conservatives to argue that government interventions make things worse." Why does the author dismiss the possibility that the argument has at least some truth to it? For a variety of reasons, some which are due to government policy, the necessity of marriage has reduced dramatically. That's good in many ways, such as reducing abusive situations. But it also means that people who could get married peacefully choose not to, to the detriment of their children.
iblaine 10y ago
>Key characteristics for success: perseverance, industriousness, grit, resilience, curiosity, application, self-control, future orientation, self-discipline, impulse control, delay of gratification Students may left to figure out successful habits on their own. I believe education could be improved by officially defining successful habits. It may sound silly to have Tony Robbins courses taught in school but something along those lines could have great benefits. As it stands today, parents are left to define successful habits and that is not happening for every child growing up.

79 points by dpflan 10y ago

> For college graduates, they argue, “marriage has become the commitment device that supports intensive joint investments in children,” a cooperative “joint project of raising economically successful children.” This is a great article but this point kind of made me chuckle. "Has become?" It's always been that.

dpflan 10y ago
I too found these statements entertaining - it makes the process of raising a child seem utilitarian for the family and society (which is a valid / interesting perspective).
qntty 10y ago
Not too long ago people had children because they needed people to help work the farm.
roflc0ptic 10y ago
It's really not a bad point. As one of those college graduates, having children is probably the only reason I'd get married. Marriage has been and is many other things, too. It's has been a tool women have used to escape their parent's house. It's been used to build social ties among disparate groups, as well as maintain social ties within tight knit communities. It's been a union of two humans in the eyes of God. It's been a tool for subjugating women, and social control. College graduates are getting married less, and later. The point of that sentence, I think, is that the values driving the decision to get married have shifted, and are somewhat stratified by socioeconomic status.
- feld 10y ago
  In the eyes of theists it is the union of two humans in the eyes of God. I think in 2017 it's time we start calling this fairy-tale bullshit out instead of stating it as fact.
  - ezequiel-garzon 10y ago
    I don't think being a theist means you believe in religious ceremonies necessarily. Also, the comment you replied to made pretty clear that marriage is many things to different people. In any event, in 2017 and 5000 you'll be able to spend your life arguing what a fact is. I'm an atheist, but I'm totally OK with that comment. People should relax across the theological board...
    - roflc0ptic 10y ago
      Yeah! The comment is taking an anthropological perspective - marriage is a complex institution with huge differences between cultures, and a simplistic description "evolutionarily/economically beneficial strategy for pooling of resources for child rearing" lacks a lot of explanatory power. What about gay people? etc
  - bobbington 10y ago
    is this comment appropriate for hacker news? Seems too debatable to me. Whether God exists or not is a contentious subject. but still 89% of Americans think God exists according to a Gallup poll. Many highly intelligent people believe in God and his view on marriage. It is not intellectually honest to say that Gods existence, and thus religious views on marriage is a foregone conclusion when 1) so many highly intelligent people disagree and 2) its impossible to completely disprove the existence of God (Richard Dawkins acknowledges this) http://www.gallup.com/poll/193271/americans-believe-god.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/193271/americans-believe-god.aspx
  - metaphorm 10y ago
    this is a level of vitriol and hostility that gets people like Trump elected. I don't believe in the Judaeo-Christian God either, but I don't feel compelled to make nasty remarks about it in public. Other people have different beliefs than you. Judge them on their behavior, not their beliefs.
    - wfo 10y ago
      You can tell someone they are being a jerk without blaming Trump on them. Now it seems like the auto response to someone saying something distasteful and liberal is to say "you, saying stuff like this that I don't like, that's why Trump got elected" and intended or not it's an implicit threat -- don't say things I don't like or else we'll get another Trump. People being rude on the Internet is NOT why Trump won the election and believing so, and letting people hold you and what you say hostage with the threat "I might vote for Trump again if you e.g. defend feminism too rigorously and loudly, watch it liberal" isn't sustainable or acceptable. But you're right the comment you're referring to was very rude and unacceptable, my response is intended towards this sort of response /in general/.
nfriedly 10y ago
I got married while in college, and generally recommend it. For one thing, it made sense financially because the gov't stopped counting my parent's money (that I couldn't touch) when determining how much aid I received. It was also nice just to have someone to help me out with things (eating decently, remembering to print homework, etc.) And, of course, the usual benefits of being married...
- ashark 10y ago
  > For one thing, it made sense financially because the gov't stopped counting my parent's money (that I couldn't touch) when determining how much aid I received. Can confirm. If my (now) wife and I'd gotten married freshman year instead of waiting until junior year we'd have saved a hell of a lot of money. > It was also nice just to have someone to help me out with things (eating decently, remembering to print homework, etc.) Works both ways. One person's ice-cream craving easily becomes both people eating ice cream, to pick an example. Or "I'm in a hurry and hitting Arby's, do you want me to bring you something?". Well, I didn't, but now I guess I do. Much easier to eat healthy solo unless you marry someone with significantly healthier eating habits than yours, IMO. Even if they're just similar to yours there's a good chance you'll end up eating more junk for the above reason. And such habits can drift over the years.
  - ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
    Maybe HN readers are preternaturally mature for their ages, but marrying young for material benefits has a pretty bad track record in the military, where young soldiers do it in order to live off post.
    - ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
      Well, marrying young for material benefits and being in love. I have no problem with gaming the system for benefits, because marriage is unfortunately tied to so many benefits.
- FussyZeus 10y ago
watwut 10y ago
Parenting is now much more involved then it used to be. You can not tell your seven years old to go play alone outside. You don't just have four-five years old playing whole day, they have to have enriching activities up to teaching them letters etc. In the past, you would marry for many different reasons that had nothing to do with children - including simply social pressure or wish to be more independent from parents.
- 6stringmerc 10y ago
  Also, I know in a lot of rural communities to this day, children are part of the family labor force at a young age. They're not idle input experiments, if it can be helped. They're out in the field or in the barn too.
- rayiner 10y ago
  Parenting is no more involved than it used to be. Among certain demographics, the social expectations surrounding parenting are more involved than they used to be. But those are optional. Neither my wife or I did any enriching activities as kids. We ran around outside and played with sticks, or sat around and read. Teach your kids to read as quickly as you can, because then they can entertain themselves and leave you alone.
  - ErrantX 10y ago
    > Teach your kids to read as quickly as you can, because then they can entertain themselves and leave you alone. Not just this, but educate themselves too. Best Child-Hack you can do is teach them to love reading.
mkaziz 10y ago
Having sex was also a major reason. Socially acceptable pre and extra marital sex is still a newish thing in our societies.
- chrisbennet 10y ago
  Maybe 60 years ago. It was pretty common starting in the 1960s in the US.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]

kazagistar 10y ago

I didn't see error bars or distribution within each category on those graphs. Are these results significant enough to indicate these traits have more then a few % points impact on upward mobility chance?

known 10y ago

Machiavellianism (willingness to manipulate and deceive others), Narcissism (egotism and self-obsession), Psychopathy (lack of remorse and empathy), Sadism (pleasure in suffering of others) in REAL World

exergy 10y ago

I'm going to go off on a tangent here, and will happily accept downvotes, but I feel like venting for a bit. I love the NYT. Years ago, when I got into it, I was blown away by Krugman, Kristof, Friedman (yes), and even David Brooks. They sounded sensible, nuanced, and intelligent. A lof of that hasn't changed (except perhaps my opinion of Friedman!), but NYT's comment section is a cesspool. I'm as liberal as they come, but every NYT comment section is effectively blaming the right-wing regardless of the context of the article. When Brooks talks about values for example, or "social fabric", I think he does a good job of being reasonable, and if the article were from "anon" vs. Brooks, people would say "Yeah, sounds about right." Instead, all we get are "David, your party caused this, blah blah blah". Even in this article, there is a lot of data and lots of food for thought. And yet, the top comment starts out: "Is the problem "single mothers" or is it the right-wingers who conspire to create, perpetuate, and steadily increase economic inequality?" It's as if you only care about establishing what side the author belongs too, argument be damned.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
This is the web today. I stopped reading comments on most articles long ago because it's always like you described. This does nobody any good. Actually, it does politicians good to keep us separated down the middle. We are at our weakest in this position.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Not helping that modern marketing has taken to game such comment sections (never mind the wider social media field) on behalf of their paymasters. In a sense the net, first seen as flattening the classes, have instead empowered the elite to make both Stasi and Bernays look like bungling idiots. Rather than crude manual policing etc, computers can both monitor all activity online (and offline, thanks to the likes of smartphones) and insert data to affect opinions and future activity.
- c3o 10y ago

velebak 10y ago

Two feet and the desire to climb it.

1maginary 10y ago
>the desire to climb it Isn't the article implying that even the very desire and will to climb it are significantly influenced by upbringing, income, etc? So even if two feet and the desire were all you really needed, you'd still be at a disadvantage compared to people in different income brackets and more stable family status.

onewhonknocks 10y ago

Taking one's hands out of one's pockets.

erikb 10y ago

Well the stats aren't talking at all about success but about persistance and self control

Boothroid 10y ago

A question I'm interested in that is related to this topic: what are the limits to improving conditions through education? For example, if we improve chances for everyone we might end up with thousands more aspiring brain surgeons that will never have the opportunity to pursue their dream, simply because there's a limit to the amount of brain surgeries we will ever need to perform. Isn't improving chances for all going to create misery for those that have their prospects raised, but whose ambition exceeds their talent? I'm reminded of an essay titled The Rise of the Meritocracy in which if I recall correctly a perfect meritocracy is depicted, and one of the problems is that the unsuccessful genuinely have no one to blame but themselves for their status and are even more miserable as a result!

pm90 10y ago
It is an interesting question. Although, you do have to differentiate between learning skills and an actual education, which I take to be an improvement in critical thinking and general overall awareness. I still think there would be interesting problems to solve, even in a perfectly educated society. I don't want to be a brain surgeon, or any surgeon, or anything really in the medical field. There is a theory that some people are "naturally inclined" to certain tasks and maybe we could realize that and have a society that allows everyone to specialize in that...
- jeffdavis 10y ago
  The problem is that natural inclination doesn't always line up with demand. Many people may want to be a professional beer taster, but we don't need very many of them.
replicatorblog 10y ago
That's what we call a high-quality problem. The more pressing challenge is how do you get low performers to the point where they could capably manage an airport Chili's. The reality is that it's difficult for people in many blue collar industries to find workers who will show up to work, take direction, etc. The book Hillbilly Elegy documents this phenomena in the Rust Belt. Not sure how big a part of the problem this is, but I've heard this story dozens of times from family who own contracting businesses, low-skill manufacturing ops, etc.

samfisher83 10y ago

To summarize if you have a family with a mother and father who make a of money you will likely make a lot of money.

gadders 10y ago
Well, yes, but that doesn't answer why. I would suggest that some portion of intelligence has a hereditary factor, and (outside entertainment and professional sports) intelligence has a correlation with income levels.
- thatfrenchguy 10y ago
  Cultural capital is a thing as well, one of the big reasons rich people's kids get more successful is because they know people / they know how to behave with other rich people.
  - gadders 10y ago
    That is a thing, certainly. If you chose two kids with identical IQs/personalities, the child with wealthier parents would have an easier time.
jeffdavis 10y ago
Maybe it has more to do with having good parents in a stable relationship than the money.

neves 10y ago

Is it just me that chill? when I read things like: > the expected returns to child investments by parents with > limited resources and uncertain futures may be lower than > for more educated parents with greater and more secure > investment capabilities. Sure we live in a capitalist society, but treating my sons like an "investment opportunity" looks crazy.

metaphorm 10y ago
it's not just you. we live in a very sick society and the way language is used (by "the paper of record" in this case) is a reflection of that sickness.
dba7dba 10y ago
And people with such ideas are opinion makers. Now THAT is chilling.
throwawayyyyyyy 10y ago
The fact that you have an emotional attachment to your children is evidence of their value. Things that provide value are assets, and things that provide value over time are investments. A common share of Google may give you financial value in return, whereas a child will give you emotional or psychological return. Technically, children should be classified as more of an investment than stock because they can go work and provide for you financially while still giving you emotional value. Stock can't really give you emotional value (other than pride).
- Sone7 10y ago
  >Things that provide value are assets Things.
  - throwawayyyyyyy 10y ago
    Humans are things. What's your point?
- neves 10y ago

phantarch 10y ago

Is this measuring a causal relationship though? Correlation is not causation... Maybe those kids from more wealthy/well-educated families are more persistent and tempered because their self-image aligns with society's looming popular image of what people /should/ be: wealthy, polymath millionaires.

jeffdavis 10y ago
This article is not a standard "character drives prosperity" piece. Did you read it? If so, I am missong your point.

jeffdavis 10y ago

"the failure of government efforts to affect or slow down negative developments has left an opening for conservatives to argue that government interventions make things worse." Why does the author dismiss the possibility that the argument has at least some truth to it? For a variety of reasons, some which are due to government policy, the necessity of marriage has reduced dramatically. That's good in many ways, such as reducing abusive situations. But it also means that people who could get married peacefully choose not to, to the detriment of their children.

iblaine 10y ago

>Key characteristics for success: perseverance, industriousness, grit, resilience, curiosity, application, self-control, future orientation, self-discipline, impulse control, delay of gratification Students may left to figure out successful habits on their own. I believe education could be improved by officially defining successful habits. It may sound silly to have Tony Robbins courses taught in school but something along those lines could have great benefits. As it stands today, parents are left to define successful habits and that is not happening for every child growing up.